


The Black Line Below Me

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2011, Community: spn_rambleon, Gen, M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not about money</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Black Line Below Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glorious_spoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/gifts).



> Notes: written for glorious_spoon's prompt at spn_rambleon: It doesn't bother Dean any more than some of the other things he's done to survive, but Sam is horrified when he finds out. [Originally posted [here](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/236752.html).]

Dean cuts through the pool with powerful, easy strokes, gliding, weightless, on the water.

He counts: one, two, three, four, left-right then a kick. He turns his head sideways on number four, opens his mouth just above the water, and fills his lungs with frozen air that smells of chlorine. He puts his head under again, eyes wide open behind his goggles and fixed on the black line painted below. In the lunar light coming from the windows, he casts a moving shadow of frayed edges above it, a vague sense of arms and torso and legs as if his body's dissolving into the water.

*

"Smooth and easy," Theodore Saransk says, and his hand's heavy on Dean's shoulder as he pushes him to his knees. Dean thinks of resisting, thinks of the damage he could inflict– a solid punch to the solar plexus, right above the slight swell of the stomach visible under the man's gray-green t-shirt. Dean could leave him curled on the floor if he wanted. He could. But he doesn't.

Saransk's other hand cups the side of Dean's face, and Dean wants to laugh when trembling fingers trace the contour of his lips.

The fucking pervert has no right being nervous. He's not the one on his knees, breathing even, shallows breaths so he won't throw up all over Saransk's dirty boots.

*

Gymnastics is Dean's favorite class. He can make up a reason to skip the lesson – headache, bellyache, backache. Gonorrhea, if he's feeling creative and thinks that the teacher is distracted enough he can get away with it. He can spend an hour dozing or reading on the bleachers or in sweat-reeking changing rooms while he waits for Sam to be done with his own classes. In his experience, gym teachers just don't give a flying fuck about losing students, and he's got no reason to believe that this one will be any different.

Dean's relaxing on the top row of the bleachers when Coach Grayson enters, a tall man with shoulders as wide as the span of a door and his head shaved. He's got a yellow, hard-cover carpet under his left arm and a silver whistle around his neck. He stops at the gym's threshold, dark eyes roaming from face to face and Dean watches on, curious, as his classmates move nervously: slouched backs straightening with such rapidity he wonders how many are getting whiplash.

When Grayson looks his way, Dean slouches deeper in his own seat, legs straight in front of him and ankles crossed. He only gets a longer, neutral stare as acknowledgement before Coach Grayson continues with his careful sweep of the class. Dean, interest lost, stares at his hands.

"I want all of you in swimming trunks by the edge of the pool in five minutes," he says, and Dean looks up, smile already forming on his lips for the easy excuse Coach Grayson served him with on a silver plate. He raises his hand, waits for the nod before he says, "Sorry, sir. I don't have swimming gear."

Coach Grayson doesn't even look his way when he answers, "No problem, Winchester, I think we can scrape together something for you."

 _Like hell_ , Dean thinks. But later he swears, _fuck_ , under his breath, when Grayson pushes goggles, a cap, and the smallest swimming trunks he's ever seen into Dean's arms.

*

John's renting a second-floor apartment in Jackson, Missouri, a shithole of a place with two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom so narrow Dean has to sit sideways when he's taking a crap. Sam's disgusted face whenever they find a cockroach on the floor, belly up and legs kicking at the air, is all the eloquence he needs to express his honest-to-god opinion on their accommodation. There's a biker bar right under the apartment, people partying every night from Wednesday to Sunday, sunset to dawn. The walls are so thin Dean's sure he could follow entire conversations if he put his ear against the floor; he sure as hell heard the angry shouts and the drunken cat calls, and the noise of the tables breaking both times the partying got to be too much and someone called the cops.

They play good music on the juke box though, and when the glass panes on the windows tremble with the power of a low bassline, Dean imagines he's dozing in the passenger's seat while his father drives, head resting against the window.

*

Swimming is all about the rhythm. Inside the pool, Dean loses himself, smells only the chlorinated water, which smells nothing like water usually does. He picked the lock of the only emergency exit for the school swimming pool two days after his first lesson with Grayson. He kinda likes being the only occupant.

Dean completes ten laps before he starts to feel the fatigue, but pushes through another ten until his lungs are begging for air and his arms and legs become heavy.

He floats on his back for a while. Ears underwater, only his heartbeat and the gentle lapping of water against his sides to break the silence.

*

What Saransk calls his office is a square room, no larger than an oversized storeroom. One side is occupied with piles of liquor, the boxes covered in a thick layer of dust. Pushed against the wall on the opposite wall is a desk with metallic feet, a fake-leather chair, and a low cabinet closed with heavy locks. Saransk tugs a chain hanging from the ceiling and the single bare light-bulb switches on. He ushers Dean inside. There are no windows in the room and the bulb sways slowly back and forth, sending light bouncing all over the walls.

Saransk owns the biker bar and the apartment they're renting. Saransk has a mop of wispy graying hair, a beer gut.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Dean," Saransk says while he sits. Dean frowns at the use of his proper name and keeps close to the door. Saransk's smile is strained when he glances up. Dean must be wrong, but he looks almost disappointed at Dean's evident lack of trust.

"I know you boys are busy with school and studying." He's playing with the frayed edges of what looks like an accountant book. "You two are such good kids. Your father's a lucky man. It must be very hard being forced to stay away for so long."

Saransk says the last words so pointedly Dean almost laughs at his lack of subtlety. _Almost_. Dean wants out of the room now.

"You said you had some kind of problem, Mr. Saransk." The dust in the room is making Dean's nose twitch, and Dean rubs it with the back of his hand. Despite his shower, the sharp smell of chlorine still clings to his skin and for a brief moment it eclipses the dry reek of the room.

*

It's Monday night and the clock on the wall reads nine thirty-three when the phone rings. Dean throws his book aside and stands from the couch, mentally adding the twelve minutes the clock always loses no matter how many times Dean sets it to the correct time. Sam looks up from the book he's bent over, a spread of highlighters, pencils, and carefully-written notes on perfectly-aligned notebooks occupying the entire surface of the Formica table. The book Dean's reading is about the physics of vectors, resistance, and aerodynamics. He borrowed it from the library, but he lets Sam think he's reading it for a physics class. From the look Sam had given him, Dean's not sure Sam bought Dean's lie.

When Dean answers the phone, he breaks the third ring in half. "Hello?"

"Dean," John says, his voice so faded it sounds like it's coming from underground. Dean presses the phone against his ear.

"The hunt's gonna take more time than I thought. I won't be back by the end of the week."

Dean was expecting as much; he's never seen a hunt go according to plan or any kind of timetable. "How long?" he asks. Sam's eyes narrow.

"Can't say for sure. A couple of weeks, maybe more. Think you can hold the fort that long?"

Dean thinks of the money tucked inside his boot – two-hundred and eleven dollars and sixty cents. Rent's not due for another three weeks, and he and Sam had gone grocery shopping just the day before. "Sure," he says.

The connection clears suddenly, and Dean hears John's exhale clearly as if he's standing in front of him. "Good," John says after a long silence Dean had been tempted to fill questioning his father about the hunt.

"Ghouls, kid –" John says, letting the monster's name hang in the air to evoke sights of desecrated bodies and white, bare bones. Maybe, Dean thinks, as his father talks, John can read minds, answering what Dean hadn't gathered the courage to ask. "I'm on their tracks – though I'm pretty sure it's just one – but it's turning out to be more clever than I thought."

Dean looks Sam's way when he asks, "Do you need help? I'm sure I can find a way to get to Minnesota if –"

"I've got it under control," John stops Dean before he can complete the offer. Sam's looking ready to stab Dean with the point of his sharp pencil. "I've got some local help. The sheriff got involved and for once he's not an idiot."

Dean doesn’t think he lets his disappointment show in his voice when he says, "Okay." But his father promises him next time he'll bring him along, anyway.

"Keep things smooth over there, Dean. I'll call as soon as I can."

"Yes, sir," Dean answers. "I will."

*

Jackson High School's only source of pride is the swimming pool. It stands about two hundred feet from the school proper, in a tall single-story building with walls painted white on the outside and aqua-marine inside. Two rows of wide, rectangular windows run along the length of the building and let the natural light hit the water sideways, creating all sorts of pretty shadows on the tiled pool bottom.

Seen from afar, the pool annex looks shiny, but inside the bleachers are rusty and shaky, the showers, once candid white, are lined with black streaks of mould and stained a reddish color under the showerheads, the tiles are broken. The oxygenation implant is defective, and the water's so charged with chlorine Dean thinks each swimmer leaves a few layers of skin inside the water every time they spend more than half an hour in the pool. Not that Coach Grayson worries himself about it. He's happy enough shouting orders, walking up and down along the edge of the pool, pants wet from the knee down. His voice echoes on the tall ceiling amidst the too-loud splashes of uncoordinated dives.

That first time, wearing swimming trunks that barely cover his ass, Dean stands in line with his classmates while Coach Grayson gives them the shortest introduction ever to swimming. Dean has no experience when it comes to swimming classes, but he's sure 'try not to drown' isn't considered solid, safe preparation.

"We've finally got the authorization to use the pool, so let's make the most of it," Coach Grayson concludes as a way of explanation or apology – Dean can't decide – and then he divides them into four groups, six of them on each lane. Anyone who takes too long to dive into the pool after he blows his whistle, Coach Grayson will push into the water.

A harpy had thrown Dean against a tree on a hunt at the end of August, right before school started, leaving his left side mottled with a deep purple bruise that went from hipbone to shoulder blade. The bruise had faded to yellow already, only a shadow left that didn't even ache anymore, and Dean had forgotten all about it until he's standing on the diving board, Coach Grayson behind him, lips wrapped around his whistle, and eyes seeing too much. Dean raises his shoulders, daring him to say anything.

Coach Grayson only blows on his whistle and Dean, not wanting to be pushed, kicks his legs out and dives. He'll never forget that first, exhilarating shock of cold water.

*

Saransk's eyes are glittering even in the twilight of the windowless room, something eager and predatory Dean doesn't want to see. Dean stares ahead, finds a greasy stain high on Saransk's shirt that looks like a half-moon or a flower, or just a fucking greasy stain. Saransk doesn't take his left hand away from the side of Dean face even as he unzips his jeans and frees his hard, congested dick from the waistband of his brief. Dean makes the mistake of glancing at it, sees the red head, flushed with blood and aroused and twitching and pointing toward Dean's lips.

Saransk has a big, calloused hand: it spans all over Dean's right cheek, palm sweaty against it. He rubs his thumb ever so slightly under Dean's eye.

"You never did anything like this, eh?" Saransk asks. He doesn't wait for an answer and Dean hears the pleasure in his voice, knows it's a good thing in Saransk's book. Thinks, of course, the bastard's pleased he's got a virgin mouth to rape.

"It's all right, don't worry. I'll walk you through it."

*

"You're good," says Coach Grayson.

Dean's wet and shivering, loose limbed and aching all over.

A group of his classmates passes by them. Dean watches them push each other toward the showers in the changing rooms.

"What?" Dean asks.

Coach Grayson continues speaking as if Dean hadn't asked anything. "Sure your technique is atrocious and you'd need to build some muscle if you want to be competitive, but technique can be taught and we can plan a good work-out regimen at the gym."

Coach Grayson looks at him with those sharp, dark eyes that reveal nothing. Says, "And you like swimming, Winchester, don't try to deny it."

Dean wasn't going to, but he keeps silent. He's starting to get cold and he longs for the moist warmth of the showers and their endless supply of hot water.

Coach Grayson looks him up and down. "Come back in the afternoon if you're interested. Regionals are in spring. I can make you a winner."

*

Sam's too observant for his own good. He's waiting for Dean, sitting awkwardly on the steps that lead to the Saransk's bar. Sam had gotten tall over the summer – tall and lanky – and his brain has yet to catch up with the new reach of his arms and legs, getting tangled in the extra length. Dean smiles when Sam stumbles after standing up too fast.

"What did he want?" Sam asks. Dean opens his mouth to answer, but his brain gets tangled like Sam's limbs, stumbling on the impossible task of explaining the kind of trade Saransk had laid on the table. Dean shakes his head, hoping his smile doesn't come across as brittle and jagged, the way he feels inside.

"Nothing important, Sam. He needed Dad's social security number for I don't know what related to the rent, but I bullshitted my way out of giving it."

Sam's forehead wrinkles, and he stares directly at Dean's face until Dean has to look away. There's nothing worth looking at, only a street, a few parked cars, and a darkening sky, but Dean tries anyway. He ends up staring at the farthest corner, and he knows he's being childish and whiny, but he can't help willing his father to turn it right now. He wants it so much, he's even sure for a small, glorious moment that he can hear the deep rumble of the Impala.

"C'mon," Dean says "We're treating us to pizza."

Sam falls into step beside him, huddling inside his jacket when the wind carries a freezing draft against their faces. Winter's already knocking at the door, a chill in the air that still hides under the bright October sun in the morning, but has no fear of revealing itself when the sun's gone.

They walk in silence at a brisk pace, Dean focusing on the cadence of their steps so he can forget how horribly screwed they are. He fingers the handle of his knife, thinks of the loaded gun in the bottom of his duffle bag, the sawed-off leaning behind the bathroom door.

Fucking pervert had used Sam's age – not even fourteen, yet; Dean still a minor himself until January – and he'd pushed all of Dean's buttons, one by one, dangled the old, scary specter of social services like a hook Dean could have only bitten on. Saransk deserves whatever Dean would do to him.

Sam's sharp tug on his arm brings him back from the dark edge of rage he's teetering on, vision so blurred with it, Sam's face takes a moment to come into focus.

"Dean," he says, "It's been almost two weeks and Dad hasn't called once, don't you think –"

Dean's shouting before he even realizes it: "Shut up, Sam! Just shut up!"

He feels like a lowlife a moment later: Sam's hurt expression, eyes big and wet, cheeks as red as if he'd been slapped. Oh, God, he'd made his little brother cry.

Dean paces a few feet up and down, scrubs his hair with a hand, feeling too many things slipping through his fingers like his too-short hair. He longs for something to grab, something to hold onto. He stops in front of Sam.

"I'm sorry, Sammy. God…I –"

But Sam's right and Dean knows he can't put this off anymore. Dad hasn't called since that first night, and then nothing. It's high fucking time Dean faces the possibility that something happened to him. He knows he should call Bobby or Pastor Jim – both willing to help and still talk to Dean even after their father pisses them off – but he also knows Dad will be pissed if Dean wastes Bobby or Pastor Jim's time.

Dean knows he's been bullshitting himself for far too long.

"You're right, Sam. Fuck. I'm…I'm gonna call Pastor Jim tomorrow. I'll call Bobby, too, see if they can send someone to Minnesota to track Dad."

Sam's still looking at him wild-eyed and scared, and Dean's shoulders drop. He's so tired, he'd sleep for a month straight.

"Please, Sam," he says. "Just. Let's go have our pizza, okay?" He doesn't mind that he's begging; he'd do anything to wipe that look out of Sam's eyes.

Sam's nod is short and fast, and they start walking again.

"Saransk says Dad forgot to pay the rent," Sam says.

Dean curls his fists inside the pockets of his jacket, heat spreading from the middle of his chest up to the sides of his face at the idea that the pervert dared to speak to Sam. It's a lie – the not paid rent - Dean knows. He'd seen Dad pay the man with his own eyes right before he left for Minnesota.

Saransk's problem has never been about money: Dean could have given him two months of rent and it wouldn't have changed a single thing.

"Don't worry about it," he tells Sam. "I fixed everything."

"How?" Sam asks, and there's a dare on his voice, a righteous indignation; any trace of hurt and fear now gone, and in their place a pinched look of lips stretched into a thin line. The change in Sam's demeanor is so abrupt Dean feels dizzy with it, and it may just be because of their position, but Dean can swear Sam keeps staring at Dean's mouth.

Dean swallows the taste of bitter spunk on reflex, looks at his feet to keep his face in the shadows and out of Sam's sight, sure Sam's gonna notice something if he keeps looking, sure Sam will see how swollen and red and stretched Dean's lips feel.

Dean's not sorry; he's not ashamed, and damn Sam for making him feel like looking out for them – looking out for Sam – is something Dean should pussyfoot around.

The way I usually do, Sam," Dean says.

Sam's belligerence deflates as abruptly as it flared. "You know what?" Sam says. "Ignore it." In the dark, Sam's face is all sharp angles and deep shadows. "I'm sorry, Dean. I shouldn't have-- I know you look out for us."

*

The afternoons are shorter and sunrays hit the ground sideways through the scrawny trees in the school yard. Dean's sitting on the ground, his back against a tree trunk when the last period bell rings from deep inside the school. He doesn't move from his spot until he sees Sam crossing the front door, too-heavy backpack hanging on his back. Sam waves at someone behind him when he sees Dean.

Sam falls on the ground beside Dean with a thump. Unbalanced by the weight of his backpack, he lands with his legs in the air for a moment before he finds his balance and rights himself.

"Made new friends?" Dean asks.

Sam shrugs, a sullen, defensive look on his face that fades as soon as Dean hands him a sandwich and a cold coke.

"Yes," he says, his mouth full. "Met a kid at calculus. He's all right."

They eat in silence under the shadow of the tree. It's almost four when a group of students starts gathering in front of the swimming pool annex, a couple of his classmates among them. Coach Grayson is next, sliding across the courtyard with his purposeful stride and the silver whistle hanging around his neck. He spots Dean and slows down, eyebrow raised above his expectant dark eyes.

Dean stares back for the span of a blink, then he wraps his half-finished sandwich in its greasy foil paper and jumps to his feet.

"C'mon, squirt, let's go home," he tells Sam. He stretches an arm and Sam grabs Dean's hand and levers himself up, long body and backpack alike.

Coach Grayson's look is heavy between Dean's shoulder blades as he walks out of the schoolyard. Dean doesn't glance black, tells himself he's only missing being terrorized and shouted at for a couple of hours. He even kinda pities the kids waiting by the front door of the pool for the abuse they're about to get.

*

The noise of the key turning in the lock wakes Dean up from a shallow sleep. He stands up, hand already curled around the knife and bare feet digging into the floorboards. The clock on the wall reads eleven past two and John's standing under it, the white of a bandage around his head sharp in the half-tones of the dark room.

"Dean?" he calls and Dean feels his legs go weak with relief. He puts the knife on the table, lets John give him a half-armed hug. His father's left arm is encased in a cast, and even in the faint light, Dean can see the paleness of his skin, the sag of his shoulder.

"Dad," Dean says. "Are you all right?"

Sam peeking from the door of their bedroom keeps John from answering. Sam's rubbing sleep from his eyes with both his fists, looking all of six like that. "Dad?" Sam asks, and even his voice sounds thinner and laced with fear. Dean can't be sure, but he thinks Sam's back is shaking when John leans down to hug him.

"I'm back," John says. "Shh, I'm back. Everything's gonna be all right."

John pats Sam's back with his cast-encased hand, the other he puts around the side of Dean's neck, before it falls heavy on the swell of his shoulder. Dean barely keeps himself from flinching away.

*

Jackson's asleep when Dean breaks into the swimming pool for the last time. His steps echo in the empty building, travelling fast in the natural silence of the night. The surface of the pool is iridescent with the faded moonlight coming from the windows, and it spills refracted light all over the aqua-marine walls. Dean feels like he's already underwater when he sheds his clothes down to the swimming trunks he'd been wearing under his jeans. The air is freezing and raises goosebumps on the skin of his arms. He pads barefooted to the diving board at the third lane. He steps onto it, toes curling on the damp, rough surface. He bends his knees at a perfect forty-five degree angle, curves his body parallel to them, and stretches his arms above his head, fingertips touching as if he's praying. He keeps the position until his body's straining, and his muscles burn, alive and stretched; he keeps the position until he hears the phantom noise of a whistle. With a strong kick he dives into the pool, cutting through the water with minimal splash. He goes deep, straight as an arrow, touching the tiles on the pool bottom with both hands, palms flat on each side of the black line.

\--


End file.
